Case A) Buying into the health food/'natural'/snake oil...er, 'alternative medicine' anti-government paranoid conspiracy bullshit. Oh, and 'financial planning' gurus with internet followings that have inadequate or nonexistent understanding of advanced topics they're trying to tell people to avoid, as critiqued by those who work in the field professionally (not to mention attempting to tie their spiel into the parables of Christ by twisting the Good Samitarian into a story about wealth, or openly ignoring critics that directly quote the 'easier for a camel' verse). This only goes along with it because they end up feeding into this teabagging and Moral Majority-esque 'family values' nonsense too.

which leads into...

Case B) I fully expect to be treated like some sort of godless heathen 'socialist' (that's not socialist at all if they even had a clue what that word really means) if I ever dare to tell the cold hard truth of the matter and call it snake oil or tell them that Frosty the Snowman has a better chance of rising out of Hades than I do of ever listening to/believing this crap. Never mind the part where the ones making the unhealthy connection to faith/religion and screwing up their priorities would be them, not me. But since I'm the one that properly acknowledges science and evidence-based medicine and the authorities that exist to regulate safety measures, I'm the one that hates freedom/God/success/what-have-you or that I must love 'big government' (which is a completely useless term) or handouts/welfare/freeloading/all manner of other propaganda. Never mind the part where the denomination we're a part of accepts the validity of science, including that of cosmological, geological, and biological evolution and has a long history of supporting social justice. I want to beat my head against a wall at the juxtaposition.

To reiterate the Michael Specter quote at the top of a very relevant article on the topic,"We hate Big Pharma. We hate big government. We don’t trust The Man. And we shouldn’t. Our health care system sucks. It’s cruel to millions of people. It’s absolutely astonishingly cold and soul-bending to those of us who can even afford it. So we run away from it, and where do we run? We leap into the arms of Big Placebo."

But the single biggest thing that I can't stand about this, moreso than the content of this junk itself, is that I see the cycle; I see it as plain as the sky is blue. They're trapped in it. They've been chasing these quick fixes and what-all for years, ever since we were kids. And what did it ever come to? Nothing, that's what. And now, instead of things that at least contained vaguely useful advice about a balanced diet and exercise if they had kept with it, they're listening to complete charlatans and nutjobs hawking homeopathy (which is utterly disproved by even a basic high school understanding of chemistry) and raw milk (who wants to risk getting E. coli and Listeria? Anyone? Anyone?). Do I think anything will come of this phase? No, not at all. We're going to keep eating and using proper, scientifically valid medicine the same way we have for years, but I don't want to hear the rantings about fringe bunk just because you have an unjustified chip on your shoulder.

The thing is, all of this rage is precisely because they're my family and I love them, and it honestly hurts me to see this from them, because it's almost a reverse of what happened as kids when they'd get on me for supposedly not having any common sense, and pair it now with berating me for 'not wanting independence' just because of A) anxiety issues preventing me from learning how to drive (coupled with them not taking a pro-active position on teaching us when it mattered) and B) because the economy's gone in the toilet and every job application I submitted for years got rejected. I already feel impotent because every last bit of hope I had was crushed out of me, so let's pour more salt on that wound, but quite frankly I feel like I have more common sense and act more like an adult than they have been for the last couple years. I've learned to ignore the jabs in my direction, but the rest of it hurts because this pattern of behavior of theirs is destructive, and outside of these couple of spots of wingnuttery the relationship between us is great. My fear is that they're letting those couple of spots define them more and more and more, and I guess that deep down, that scares me because I see very clearly how dangerous it is.

This is one of those times I actually don't like venting, because it's like one of those 'never go to bed angry' types of things, except that it's more of a protective type of anger because I don't want to see anyone get taken advantage of, and the powerlessness I feel on making any difference on the matter.

Georgey (who cameo'd in a few AMVs of mine) passed away sometime while I was at work today. He'd gotten rather anti-social in the past few years, but he was still my little buddy and lived a very long time for a bunny. I'd had him longer than any other pet.

Georgey (who cameo'd in a few AMVs of mine) passed away sometime while I was at work today. He'd gotten rather anti-social in the past few years, but he was still my little buddy and lived a very long time for a bunny. I'd had him longer than any other pet.

I'm so sorry Ileia. I lost my bunny Nibbles who was nine years old last year and it was one of the hardest things ever since I'd basically grown up with her. ;__;

Lately, I've been feeling incredibly overwhelmed by, well, everything. It's been over a decade of "Put on a smile, something better will happen soon", there are occasionally brief spots, but no real improvement in the long run. The back-up store of optimism is running out and I don't know how to replenish it. I think the worst part of it is that I just feel angry at myself. People have it worse than me, I should just deal with it, not get frustrated and upset.

Lately, I've been feeling incredibly overwhelmed by, well, everything. It's been over a decade of "Put on a smile, something better will happen soon", there are occasionally brief spots, but no real improvement in the long run.

Oddly enough, I feel the same way. Probably not exactly the same way, but mostly putting a smile on just so no one notices that your thinking about how the job your doing is not helping you progress in life, you don't know what truly excites you in life or how to contribute something useful to the people around you. Something that feels like I'm not where I need to be.

Your situation is probably way different than mine, but, since you brought it up, I just kinda had to agree that this is what I've been recently thinking about too.

Lately, I've been feeling incredibly overwhelmed by, well, everything. It's been over a decade of "Put on a smile, something better will happen soon", there are occasionally brief spots, but no real improvement in the long run. The back-up store of optimism is running out and I don't know how to replenish it. I think the worst part of it is that I just feel angry at myself. People have it worse than me, I should just deal with it, not get frustrated and upset.

I know exactly how you feel, Ileia. Trying to stay optimistic and hope for things to get better for you, and while some improvements are made here and there, they don't feel like they're enough to push back the weight of everything else that's keeping you down. Or much worse, something else comes along that puts you back at square one. It's frustrating as hell, and it's difficult to look on the bright side of things after so many setbacks. You have every right to feel upset and you should vent. It helps a lot to get it off your back, and it makes it easier to deal with your troubles. Don't be angry at yourself because you feel that your problems aren't as bad some other people's.

You have a lot of good friends who are willing to hear you out and offer their support whenever and wherever you need it. You don't have to go through it alone. Hang in there, Ileia.

I'm also really sorry about Georgie, Ileia. I just found out about him this morning

I came back from dinner last night to noticing a strange dripping sound. At the same time my father, who had stopped by for the weekend, noticed some water stains on the ceiling in my family room and office. Opened my closet where the HVAC blower unit is and found about 10 gallons of water sitting at the bottom of an emergency catch basin. The blower unit for my HVAC system hasn't been serviced in like 5 years or more... bad on me, and the condensation from the AC part of it has been really high lately because of the high humidity heatwave we've had up here for the last week. I'm guessing the drain might be plugged a bit too. It looks like no serious immediate damage. Been running fans all night... but I'm definitely going to need an emergency HVAC repair to happen very soon and I might need to tear open the ceiling in my office right where I just got everything set up for my new painting table.